Soviet Era Model 91/30 Rifle Used in the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and raged for several years with the usual ferocity that only a religious war could top!  Germany backed Franco with weapons and manpower; the Soviets backed the Republicans with war material as well. American volunteers went over to help the Republicans as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Ernest Hemmingway put the conflict into words in his book For Whom the Bells Toll.

 

This author obtained a Model 91/30 rifle for the paltry sum of $10.00 in l961. What peaked my interest was the inscription on the side of the receiver; Made in USSR. This was in English letters and not Cyrillic as used by the Soviets/Russians. Why would anyone put this on the side of the receiver? Anyone who knows anything about military firearms would know that this was a Soviet weapon especially with the hammer and sickle embossed on the top of the receiver.

 

A few years back I was talking to a fellow military weapons collector and he told me how he was in Spain looking for firearms in the late 1950s. He met a Major from the Spanish Army in a bar and he mentioned to the Major that he was looking for interesting firearms. The Major said, “If you are interested in firearms, meet me here at 0900 in the morning.” In the morning, they took a ride together to an old castle and on opening the massive door, the building was packed from floor to ceiling with captured weapons from the Spanish Civil War.

 

The amount of weapons located here was beyond George’s financial means and so he contacted Interarmco.  He said there I was in my early 20’s and watched the deal being made. The rifles, mostly 9l/30’s, sold for less than $2.00 each.

 

With this lucky piece of information, I was able to piece the puzzle together. The rifle in my possession was not stamped SA meaning Suomen Armeija and that it was once the property of the Finnish Army. The date on my rifle was 1936 which was the start of the civil war and was made at Izhevsk arsenal in the USSR. A book on the Spanish Civil War that I read some years ago gave the total Russian contribution of rifles to Spain as 500,000.

 

Why was the rifle stamped: MADE IN THE USSR?  A Golden State Arms Corp.  advertisement, from that period, offers these rifles for the sum of $14.95 each. The advertisement is headlined: HUNTERS – CONFISCATED ‘MN’ RUSSIAN RIFLES. It has a disclaimer that says; “Their sale in no way aids any iron curtain country.”

 

This was the McCarthy era and one had better be careful in word and deed if they were not to be branded a Communist sympathizer. To be sure that no one purchased one of these rifles and later found out that it was manufactured, and probably purchased, from the “commies” and additional notation was stamped on the receiver.

 

I have seen several other rifles with this inscription and all were made in 1936. This does not mean that rifles with other dates were not also sold to the Spanish government and used in the civil war. If the rifle does not have the import marks stamped on the rifle circa 1970’s and/or was purchased in the late 1950’s or 1960’s and is not stamped with an SA, it could very well be one of the Spanish rifles. The only other sources would be a GI weapon brought back from the Korean War. It is probably safe to say that not all importers were so politically correct to stamp the rifles “Made in USSR” The advertisement that lists the sale of these rifles also shows Spanish M-1893 Mauser carbines in 7 mm caliber for $19.95. These were most likely some of the weapons mixed in with the Model 91/30 rifles.

 

The provenance of any military weapon is always of prime importance to those in this field of collecting and who have even the slightest interest in history. This is certainly an interesting rifle to have in any collection and gives one the incentive to look for weapons of this type at pawn shops or gun shows.

Mosin Nagant Rifle Model 91 / 30 - Korean War Capture

During the Korean War, the United Nations forces captured 100,000 of weapons; many of these were the 91/30 Mosin – Nagant rifles and carbines. These rifles did not have the fine workmanship of the German Mauser of WWII and thus they were not highly sought after as a souvenir.  I have talked to veterans of the conflict and learned that piles of these captured weapons were put to the torch.

 Some of these captured weapons were reissued to the ROK (Republic of Korea) forces if not for a front line weapon, but as a weapon for guard duty or rear line use. A 91/30 in my collection was manufactured by Izhevsk Arsenal in the Soviet Union. It is stamped with the date of manufacture which is 1936.

 The interesting thing about the rifle is the Korean lettering on the stock in white paint. I have taken it to a local man of Korean birth and had it interpreted. It says basically; BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN LOADING THIS RIFLE.  This evidently refers to the caliber in 7.62 Russian. They did not want some recruit with minimal knowledge of ordnance to try and fire a .30 U.S or .303 British round in the rifle. This was probably a prudent precaution when one considers the level of training of recruits drafted in any army. They may know just the bare minimum about the rifle in which they were issued and from there on it’s a matter of luck that the recipient of a rifle doesn’t shoot himself of a peer. A soldier in WWI wrote home in 1918; “If the men keep shooting themselves in firearms accidents, the Germans will win the war without firing a shot!”

The rifle in this short dissertation is a most interesting one. It is not just another rifle which was made in a foreign country for the military, but was actually used in one of our “limited” wars. Was it discovered in a front line cache or was it part of the great Chinese invasion of Korea in November, 1950?  We can sit here, while holding the rifle, and think up scenarios of the possible story behind the rifle, but in some cases, dreaming can be as interesting as the real facts.

NOTE: The name of the rifle is Mosin – Nagant.  Mosin is pronounced MO-seen and Nagant, is pronounced Nah-GON (the second syllable is nasalized). The word Nagant is Walloon  and is a Belgiun-French name.

It is not known how many 91/30 rifles were manufactured in 1936 but some 17.5 million 91/30 rifles were produced from 1939 to 1945.

The information was taken from the excellent book on the rifle entitled: The Mosin-Nagant Rifle by Terence W. Lapin. It is published by North Cape publications and is recommended for those interested in a lot more on this series of rifles. 

The Johnson Marine Corps. Rifle - P and US Markings

To view high resolution photos of the Johnson rifle, sight details, and all drawings by PVT. Treadway and letters to Melven Johnson please visit the following link: Johnson Rifle

In response to a question about the P and US markings on the Johnson Rifle:

1)      The P stamped on the barrel is evidently a proof mark. The final stage of firearms manufacture is to fire a proof load in the rifle to test its strength. These are in the range of 55,000 lbs per sq. inch. The barrel on my rifle is not the one that it had when it left the factory and may have come from another rifle or been a replacement barrel. In Europe, this proof testing is sanctioned by the government and various stamps are used to make sure that the firearm has been proofed.

2)      My rifle does not have a proof mark on the receiver.

3)      The US mark on my rifle remains a mystery and may always remain so. It was certainly not put on at the factory as I mentioned in my article.

4)      If the Marine Corps had placed an identifying mark on the rifle it certainly would have been USMC.

5)      If Johnson Automatics would have purchased this rifle after the war, it would certainly have been reconditioned with a new barrel, stock, etc. as he had plenty of parts on hand. In his advertisement he states that the rifles were reconditioned. Thus Johnson Automatics certainly did not mark the gun with the US.

6)      If a firearms owner had wanted to show possession of the rifle I expect he would have stamped his name or initials on some spot on the rifle. Who ever did this certainly had a mission in mind.

7)      The stamp was placed on the rifle well down the line, after it left the factory. The barrel in the rifle is not the one that was on it when it left the factory as I found the original manufacturing records and took down all of the numbers on the bolt, barrel, magazine, etc. when it left the factory.

8)      So where did it come from? Who knows who did it or when. I mention it in the article because it is on the rifle and that is all. Sometime dreaming about the history of a firearm is part of the fun of collecting. I have never seen another mark such as this on any Johnson rifle so it was a very localized form of identification.

9)      The US marks were on the rifle when it came into my possession in 1961. I did not add them to enhance the value of the firearm. I would not have done this as even back then I knew that working over a historical firearm to your liking is a good way to ruin the monetary value, if not historical value of the firearm. To put false stamps and identification of firearms is fraud in my book!

10)  When I went through the records which were compiled by Johnson Automatics, all three legers were at my disposal. These included the non-prefix numbers, the A and the B. I have been told the only one left at the non prefix ledger. The others have been lost. It is unfortunate that I didn’t have then photo copied for posterity. So soon we get old…so late we get smart!

11)  As luck would have it, the serial number of my rifle appears in Bruce Canfield’s excellent book on the Johnson Firearms. It appears on page 249 on the second edition of the book entitled: Johnson’s Rifle and Machineguns published by Andrew Mowbray Publishers in 2006. There are serial numbers for 29 rifles that are known to have been shipped to the marines and mine is one of them. How many survived the war or are sitting in someone’s closet, undiscovered, will never be known.

If I can be of further assistance in your search for information on your Johnson rifles or mine, do feel free to contact me.

 

Clyde Cremer